In Not So Many Words
by EmRose92
Summary: John had been noticeably absent from the Mind Palace, and Sherlock wants to know why. One night he sits down with the withdrawn, grieving John Watson in an attempt to understand why...and offer some not-necessarily unwelcome marriage counseling while he's at it. After all, he owes Mary a favor. Spoilers for His Last Vow.


**The Empty Room**

"You weren't there."

The words had left him before he had realized he was going to say them out loud. John had been staring silently into the grate, left hand clenched on his knee. He seemed to shake himself from a deep stupor, clearing his throat and shifting his position in the soft, red chair, drawing his bare feet up and cocking his head at Sherlock in a poor impression of interest.

"Sorry, what?"

John's eyes were red-rimmed and dull—the Soldier's weeping. Sherlock closed his eyes and steepled his fingers to keep them occupied. He wasn't sure he wanted to get into this, not now, and maybe John would let it drop.

"Nothing. Nowhere. Nevermind."

John blinked and now the faintest hint of real interest flickered in his eyes. "No, what?"

"It's nothing. Ignore me. I'm just talking. Talking nonsense. Nothing."

"You do realize," John said, his voice husky from disuse—Sherlock realized he hadn't heard him say a word since they'd arrived home from the hospital earlier that evening—"That I know you're lying to my face right now."

Sherlock glanced at him, seeking the humor, wanting to smile, laugh at the joke, but it had been a long while since he had seen humor in John's face, and there was none there now.

"Ah. Yes. You're right, of course. Sorry."

"Go on, then," John said, but Sherlock could already tell that the man was losing interest again, sinking back into the chair, eyes sliding vacantly away from Sherlock's face and back into the empty grate between them. Sherlock made a second's decision and plunged in.

Telling the truth was better than losing John to whatever dark thoughts were rolling around in his head. And judging by the way that fist was clenched tight and white around what Sherlock knew was the small silver jumpstick with A.G.R.A penned in bold black ink on one side, he knew exactly where John's thoughts were.

"In my Mind Palace. You weren't there in my Mind Palace when…well, when I was shot. Everyone else was there, but you…you weren't."

John's gaze did not move from the grate, but his brow furrowed. Sherlock knew that he had successfully yanked his flatmate away from halfway across London in that comfortable, modest flat, where mentally he had been (for the past several weeks now—every time he had come to visit Sherlock in hospital he'd had that same distant grief in his eyes that was so entirely out of Sherlock's limited capabilities to make better) with the woman he loved and hated more than anyone in the world...except possibly Sherlock himself.

Sherlock liked to think that he was a contender for the position of Person John Watson Feels Most Passionately About.

"Why not?" John rested his head against two fingers on his right hand, elbow tucked firmly on the armrest of his chair, and turned to watch Sherlock again.

"I don't know." It was true. Sherlock hadn't noticed that John hadn't been there, hadn't realized that his best friend had been conspicuously absent until he'd woke up that first day in hospital and had time to wade through the haze of morphine to replay the nightmare in his mind. Once he'd realized it, it had been painfully obvious. Of all the people Sherlock could admit (to himself, if not to anyone else) to having a relationship with, he'd have thought that John would have been there before Molly, before Mary, before _Anderson_, for pity's sake.

But he hadn't.

"Am I usually in your Mind Palace?" John's brow was still creased, and Sherlock hesitated, unsure. "And…don't lie, Sherlock. Don't."

"I wasn't going to…"

"I could see it in your face. And just…don't." John's fist spasmed on the jumpstick, and he released it with a grimace and left it sitting there on his knee. Sherlock felt instantly guilty.

"Yes. Yes, you're usually there."

"So why not this time?"

"I told you, I don't know."

John looked faintly aggrieved at this, and Sherlock backtracked hastily. "It's probably nothing. Honestly, it's nothing. I'd just been shot, for goodness sakes!" He chuckled, but it sounded forced and empty in the quiet room, and he cleared his throat awkwardly as John looked away again, lips tightening. "You can hardly blame me for not remembering everyone…"

"Yeah, right, right," John said, waving a hand in the air dismissively. "Course not. You're only the great Sherlock bloody Holmes. Course you can't remember _everyone_."

Sherlock knew suddenly where this was going, and he recoiled mentally, cursing himself for starting this, for opening up this particular can of worms.

"John, it's nothing…" he was still trying to salvage the situation even though he knew it could only end badly, knew that John was only going to erupt in a compact explosion of pent-up anger and hurt, and there was, again, nothing he could do to stop it. He had never felt so helpless for so long before, and after weeks in hospital and weeks of grieving, quiet, John, he longed desperately for some iota of control, for some semblance of normalcy.

"Nothing, yeah. No, it's fine."

Sherlock blinked. John was still sitting there calmly, and he inhaled deeply, loudly, and then let it out in a rush and tapped his right hand twice on the armchair.

"Look, Sherlock," he said. "I realize I haven't been…well, all there, lately. I didn't come round like I should when Mary…" his voice cracked on the name, but Sherlock pretended not to notice and John closed his eyes briefly, swallowing, and then continued, "when Mary and I were first married, and I'm sorry. I got busy, and settled, and I know…I know it's no excuse, but I just didn't think, and I'm sorry. For all that."

Sherlock stared at him, nonplussed. That hadn't been what he was expecting at all. John looked distinctly uncomfortable, and the haunting sadness had returned to the creases in his face. He did not meet Sherlock's gaze, but focused instead on the silver jumpstick, which he had begun to turn round and round in his fingers without seeming to notice.

"You think it was your fault that you weren't in my Mind Palace?" Sherlock asked, for the sentiment was so absurd that he felt like laughing if John hadn't looked so serious. "That's…" and he did laugh, now, a grin stretching at his cheeks. "That's completely ridiculous. You have nothing to apologize for."

John looked slightly miffed at Sherlock's laughter, but also slightly embarrassed, and Sherlock swallowed his laughter but couldn't help the amused smile that tugged at his lips. He felt a sudden rush of fondness of John, and the tension in the room that had been there since they'd arrived began to melt away as John settled back in his chair, head lolling against the back.

"So why, then? If it's not my fault? Because I've been a bit, well, stiff. It hasn't been easy, all of this. But I shouldn't have taken it all out on you."

"Stop apologizing, John. Really, stop. I know it's been hard. I know." He wanted to brush away the sadness lurking in John's face, to make it all right, but he the words wouldn't come.

"Tea?" He jumped to his feet, and John looked startled but stood too, pushing the jumpstick deep into his pocket.

"I'll help."

"No, I'll get it. It's fine."

"Last time you made me a drink you tried to drug me."

"Stag night?"

"No, that was _me_ trying to drug _you._"

Sherlock grinned, and John's lips twitched upward in a shadow smile, and something soft warmed his eyes—the warmth that Sherlock hadn't seen since he'd first woken in a hospital bed with starchy white sheets and monitors attached to the insides of his elbows and an IV in his left hand. John had been there, then, watching him, and when their eyes had met John's face had crumpled with worry and relief, and he'd gripped Sherlock's hand very tightly for a moment before releasing it and stepping back to let the other doctors fuss.

Sherlock moved around the kitchen now, pulling out teacups and sugar and grateful for something to do with his hands. John had sunk back into his chair, and all Sherlock could see was the top of his short blonde hair and part of one shoulder, but he could tell from the tilt of John's head that he was looking at the jumpstick again.

As he stood there motionless in the kitchen, staring at the back of John's head, holding a saucer in one hand and the milk in the other, it came to him.

John hadn't been there in his Mind Palace because he had been waiting outside it.

John hadn't been in there telling him how to fall and how not to go into shock and how to stop the pain because he'd needed to be outside the doors, waiting for Sherlock to emerge again.

John hadn't been there protecting him from James Moriarty like he had always, always protected him because John had to be there when Moriarty wasn't enough.

John hadn't been there when Sherlock died because he had to be in the land of the living to call Sherlock back across the void.

_John Watson is in danger…_

Sherlock sat across from John and watched him surreptitiously over the top of his cup, sipping absently at the hot, sweet liquid without really tasting it. Across from him, John seemed to be doing the same. Sherlock did not know how to explain what he knew to the sad man in the brown jumper and bare feet whose eyes flickered constantly from the silver jumpstick on the table and away again, like an addiction he couldn't break.

But Sherlock had to try.

"John," he began. "You think it was your fault that you weren't in my Mind Palace, but it wasn't. It was mine."

John shook his head and placed his cup firmly back on his saucer. "It's really not important, not now. Point is, you made it back, you didn't die. It's all fine."

"No, it isn't. It isn't fine. John…" Sherlock set his tea aside and leaned forward, and John reluctantly set his cup aside too and took a deep, silent, fortifying breath.

"Go on, then. Why wasn't it my fault?"

"You haven't forgiven Mary yet." It came out rather more harshly than he'd intended, and he winced as John's jaw tightened like a coil and the shades dropped in his eyes again. Sherlock pressed on doggedly, praying to whatever gods would listen that John would let him get through what he had to say.

"She hurt you, badly. She betrayed you. She lied to you. She wasn't who you thought she was, and you can't forgive her because you love her too much to stomach just how badly she destroyed you."

John looked as if he'd been hit, but there was anger building now too. "Yeah, right. Got any more, Sherlock?"

"Yes, in fact, I do."

A bark of sardonic, bitter laughter exploded from John's lips, and he threw his head back against the chair, the cords in his neck taut. "Unbelievable. Can we not do this now?"

"No, I'm afraid we have to."

"We really don't."

"We _really_ do."

John stared at him coldly, and Sherlock held his breath and did not break the stare. _Please, John. _And then John's head tilted, and he placed his hands on the armrests again and said quietly, "Okay. Okay, go on, Sherlock, and you'd better have a point to all this."

"Mind Palace, remember?"

"I don't see the connection."

"I'll show you. I promise. Just let me explain." He paused. His heartbeat was irritatingly hard and loud in his chest. "Are we good?"

John ran the tip of his tongue across his bottom lip. "Good, good, yeah. Good." He was looking at Sherlock like he was a battle to be fought—he gave the illusion of being relaxed, sitting there in his chair with his feet planted firmly on the floor, but Sherlock could read every tense muscle in his body. He was poised for fight or flight, and Sherlock did not know which would happen were he to fail in his explanation.

"I hurt you badly, John." He paused, but John was as still as if it had been carved from marble, and the stillness in that extraordinarily expressive face shook him. "I lied to you. I betrayed you. You gave me your trust and your friendship and I disappeared for two years without so much as a by-your-leave. I even made you watch me commit suicide before I left. I treated you _very_ poorly, and I can never apologize enough."

John tilted his head, watching Sherlock carefully, but he still did not speak, and Sherlock forged on, his throat unfamiliarly tight.

"You have been put through things no man should be put through by the people who are supposed to love you most. And yet you sit here, using our old flat as a refuge when your own home is no longer safe."

John's lips drew together, and he rubbed his temple with his fingers. "If this is more about my bloody stupid _addiction_ to danger…"

Sherlock shook his head, cutting him off curtly. "No, no, not at all. This is different. This, John, is about me. And it's about Mary. And it's about you."

"Okay…"

"Have you forgiven me for what I did?"

John frowned slightly and adjusted his weight on the chair. "I told you I did, when we were trapped in that bloody train car."

"But did you mean it?"

Sherlock held his breath, for here was the moment of truth. John's mouth had opened to snap a quick retort, but he closed it again just as quickly, and something vulnerable and sad swept across his features before he turned his gaze back to the grate. Sherlock's heart clenched, and he cursed internally. When had he given this one man so much of himself? When it had come to mean so much that this one person love him the way he had never felt loved by Mycroft, or the other children at school, or his teachers, or Scotland Yard, or the rest of the world? _Human error._ And he was more guilty of it than anyone he knew.

"I meant it when I said it," John finally said quietly, and Sherlock prepared himself for the worst, his heart sinking gracefully inside him, drifting from where it had clenched in his throat back to where it belonged, tucked safe and sound deep inside of him where no one could ever get to it.

"And now?" he asked, and was pleased to hear that his voice was steady and impassive, indifferent, even. But as John looked up at him with a small, knowing smile on his face, he knew that the man across from him could see right through him.

"Now…" John sighed. "Now, you're still forgiven. I'm not angry. I forgave you then, and it's in the past. It never happened."

"But it did," Sherlock said, and his heart was trying to beat it's way free again, but he was determined not to let it get the best of him, not again.

"Well, of course it did, but it doesn't change the way I feel about you." John's face flushed a little in embarrassment, but he forged on, struggling to spit the words out. "You're my best friend, Sherlock. I've told you that. You still are. Your flinging yourself off a rooftop didn't change that."

A great weight that he didn't even know he had been carrying lifted itself from Sherlock's shoulders, but he wasn't finished.

"I'm your best friend, and Mary is your wife."

The small smile that had been playing about John's lips dropped away faster than it had come. "Yes, she is."

"You forgave me in a matter of days."

John's gaze flickered to the jumpstick on the table, and understanding dawned. He picked up the cold cup of tea and took a sip, grimaced, and set it down again. He looked across at Sherlock, and there were no defenses in his eyes now.

"And you've been worried that because I haven't forgiven Mary yet after _weeks_ if I really hadn't forgiven you yet either."

Sherlock hadn't thought about in such concrete terms, but John made it sound simple and straightforward and so sentimentally _human_ that he cringed, and John laughed. It was hoarse and quiet, but it was real, genuine laughter for the first time in a lifetime, and Sherlock relaxed at the sound.

"In not so many words."

"In exactly that many words." John was smiling, and he took the jumpstick off the table and flipped it over in his hands. "Should I read it?"

"Your marriage is your problem…"

"No, my marriage is _our_ problem, and you know that as well as I do. You're just as involved in this mess as I am."

_Which is why I'm going to set you up at Christmas like a primary school boy, and there's nothing you can do about it. But you'll figure it out soon enough._

"I'm not one for marriage counsel, John, don't be an idiot." Sherlock leaned back and steepled his fingers again…he was warmed to think that John would include him in such a decision, but couples therapy was going too far. He paused. "What do you think you should do?"

John shrugged. "I don't know. Haven't decided." He stared at the jumpstick, and then leaned up and tucked it away in the pocket of his jeans. "Might not."

"And then?"

John shrugged again, but did not respond. Sherlock's phone buzzed, and he flipped it up.

_Baby fine. Tell him I love him._

"It's Mary," he said. John's head jerked noncommittally.

"What'd she say?"

One of Sherlock's eyebrows lifted of its own accord. "The baby's well. She loves you." He sent off a quick reply, and John's eyes wistfully followed the phone back down to the tabletop.

"You could text her, you know."

John smiled humorlessly. "Maybe."

"You should."

"Now look who's giving marriage advice."

They sat in silence, then, and when John finally stood and wished him goodnight, Sherlock watched him leave the room and heard him climb the stairs to the upstairs bedroom. Then he picked up his phone and rattled off another text to Mary.

_He's warming up. I'll talk him around. _

He waited for less than thirty seconds before a reply came. _I know._

The phone vibrated again, this time with a text from John. _Stop texting my wife. I know you are._

He smiled. _I'll stop when you start._

_Shut up and go to bed. Doctor's orders. _

He did not respond, but a moment later John texted again.

_Good you're back. _

_Goodnight, John._

And then there was quiet again, and Sherlock drifted slowly off in the armchair there in the front room of Baker Street, with John sleeping upstairs. For just a moment, he could pretend that all was right in the world.

Because for a moment, it was.


End file.
